Portret van een hond 1889 - 1893

Johanna Margaretha Piek made this photograph of a dog in the Netherlands, sometime in the early 20th century. We can see a medium-sized dog sitting in a field. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, dog ownership became increasingly popular among the middle classes in Europe, and this trend was very visible in the Netherlands. As more people kept dogs as pets, there was an increase in the demand for professional portraits of dogs. Piek was a Dutch artist, and this small photograph is an interesting case study of the democratization of portraiture in the early 20th century. Photography made portraiture accessible to a wider range of people than ever before. The photograph is a social document, showing us how people in the Netherlands related to their pets at that time. It reflects how institutions such as photography studios catered to new social trends. Further research into Dutch social history and photographic studios could reveal more about the context in which this photograph was made.